WEAC Weighs in Early

It was a fair bet that the quiet Wisconsin gubernatorial race would get a little louder after the spring elections.

And sure enough this week the big teachers union, WEAC, surprised a lot of people by endorsing Madison’s State Senator Kelda Roys. That was surprising to me mostly for the timing of it and, to some extent, for the candidate they endorsed.

Back in 2018, the last time there was a contested Democratic primary for governor, WEAC held back and endorsed Tony Evers only after he had won the nomination. And Evers would have been an obvious choice even before that. He had been state Superintendent of Public Instruction for years and he was an administrator and a school principal before that. He was steeped in the big educational establishment. A reformer he was — and is — not. His answer to all problems in public education is more money. That’s WEAC’s position.

So, it’s not at all clear to me why WEAC would jump in now and in a primary where all the candidates hold to pretty much the same party line, which is to keep shoveling more money into public schools without ever asking if that’s the answer and without ever demanding any results in return.

It gets even more confusing when we realize that there is no clear frontrunner. Usually, a big entity like this wants to wait for the field to clear out before they back the eventual winner. At only 1% in the polls and lagging the rest of the field in fundraising, nobody would pick Roys as the likely winner of the primary.

She does take perhaps a more strident pro-union position in that she is seemingly vowing to actually kill Wisconsin’s voucher program. She claims that it has “failed.” That’s a curious indictment for a program that is the choice for 60,000 families and growing.

Another possibility is the union doesn’t like what they’ve seen so far with Rep. Francesca Hong in the lead with 14% and Mandela Barnes at 11%. They may view those candidates, as I do, as the weakest to go up against Tom Tiffany in November. But if that were their strategy, there’s nothing about Roys, who is a credible candidate, that makes her stand out as more electable than other credible candidates Sara Rodriguez, Joel Brennan, David Crowley or Missy Hughes.

So it’s head-scratching. But even if she loses, Roys will still be a state senator while her party is very likely to gain the majority there. So, she’ll be in a position to help them no matter what. And I suppose that this is the most plausible reason of all.

In any event, the teachers union is the most powerful special interest group in the party. So their endorsement moves Roys’ campaign up a few notches. But I don’t think it’s decisive. In a crowded field with no clear frontrunner and little to distinguish the candidates, what will matter more than anything else is money. Brennan may have it through his brother-in-law, the multi-millionaire Kevin Conroy. Rodriguez may have some money through her connections as the sitting Lieutenant Governor. Barnes should have some money through his national connections built during his failed 2022 U.S. Senate race. Hughes has business connections and Crowley actually led the pack in fundraising at the last report deadline.

In that same report Roys finished dead last in fundraising, behind even Francesca Hong. But there’s an interesting twist there. Hong raised only a little more than Roys, but she leads in the polls with 14%. That’s largely because she’s spending all her money as fast as she can raise it on social media campaigns. It might not be a bad strategy because it’s made her a credible candidate right out of the gate. On the one hand, you might argue that this shows that money is less important than I’m suggesting. I’d argue the opposite. She’s only the early frontrunner because she’s spent more money than anybody else. When the others start spending everything will change, and fast.

I don’t say any of this because I dislike Roys or don’t want her to get the nomination. She’s taken quite a few positions I like, including standing up to pressure from the UW and voting against the ludicrous taxpayer bailout of the athletic department. I do disagree with her on just throwing more money at public schools without demanding any accountability. But that’s just the party line. Every other Democratic candidate is saying virtually the same wrong-headed thing. What I’d really like in this race is a Rahm Emanuel who will openly question liberal orthodoxy, especially on education. But that’s not a choice I’ll get.

Right now, I just don’t think Roys is likely to get the nomination and, while I think she’d probably beat Tiffany, I think there are safer choices for the general election. And, while a big boost for her campaign, unless their endorsement comes with a truckload of cash, I don’t think WEAC has changed that equation very much.

Still, I am ruthlessly practical about this. If, by August, Roys looks to me to be the most electable in November after all, then I’ll vote for Roys.

That’s it for this week. Have a good weekend.